Gary Raymond Stead is a New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

 cricket

Cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

er who played in 5 Tests

Test cricket

Test cricket is the longest form of the sport of cricket. Test matches are played between national representative teams with "Test status", as determined by the International Cricket Council , with four innings played between two teams of 11 players over a period of up to a maximum five days...

in 1999.

A top-order batsman, Stead played five Tests in nine months in 1999, averaging 34.75 and never being dismissed in single figures. Against South Africa he showed his great character, digging in and grinding out runs, but after two mediocre performances against West Indies he was dropped. His call-up had come after eight years of first-class cricket with Canterbury, and he led them for five seasons from 1998-99 in a period in which they struggled.

After he finished playing, he took up coaching and became coach of the successful New Zealand women's team.